The Longest Night
by Zayz
Summary: T/Z. A bomb has gone off. The status of the other agents is unknown. Tony might have a concussion. Tony and Ziva are trapped in an airless elevator with nothing to do but speculate, worry and talk their way through the endless hours. Multi-chap; less romantic and more emotionally intimate. R&R?
1. 4:30 PM

A/N: Hey, guys. So I know that there are about 23894723987 elevator fics out there, but this one is hopefully a bit different from the ones you have already read. I want it to be a multi-chap following the hours Tony and Ziva are trapped in the elevator.

And I can tell you right now – if you are looking for lovey-dovey gooey-ness, please just exit the browser because that's not what this story is about. I can promise you that there is no kissing or cuddling or declarations of undying love to be found here. I want to stay true to the characters as I see them, and in my head, they are not going to do anything cutesy in this elevator.

What I _can_ promise, though, is introspection and emotional intimacy and as much realism as possible. If you're craving that as much as I have been lately, then please, by all means, read ahead and let me know what you think.

Cheers, then, and enjoy. (Hopefully.)

* * *

**The Longest Night  
By: Zayz**

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Do not go gentle into that good night  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

- Dylan Thomas

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* * *

**PROLOGUE**  
**4:30 PM**

* * *

She begins to stir before he does. Breathes in the dust, the scent of plaster, the heavy stillness in the air. She coughs feebly and coaxes open her eyelids, trying to grasp the scene before her.

The elevator light is flickering weakly above her head. The ceiling has collapsed, sending chunks of debris into the elevator floor like pieces of meteorite recently fallen to Earth. There is a sharp pain in Ziva's ankle, where bits of the ceiling hit her hard; she tries to move her foot and is rewarded by such a vicious shot of pain that she almost cries out. She fears the ankle is broken, or at the very least sprained. Her head throbs; she can feel a bruise blooming on her temple where she hit the ground; her arm aches from absorbing her fall.

Her shaking, quivering hand is clutching Tony's, hard. Tony's hand is limp – he appears unconscious – but it's curled protectively over her fingers, like he had been clutching it just as fiercely before his consciousness left him. His other arm is draped over her middle. She can feel his shallow breaths against her shoulder, the back side of her neck. They are smashed up against the side of the elevator – just clear of the debris that has come down upon them.

Right in front of her face is a collection of rock and plaster, the dust just beginning to settle. She realizes, even in this state, that if he hadn't pulled her into him at the last second, she probably would have been crushed by the fall-out.

Panic flares in her stomach, a fire in the middle of the darkest night refusing to be quenched. The pieces slowly assemble themselves in her head – the evacuation, the bomb, Harper Dearing. God, the bomb went off in the middle of the evacuation.

It really happened. Dearing got a bomb on premises, and it blew up. She is sitting in the middle of the destruction, yet it doesn't feel quite real. It still feels like a vivid, dimly-lit nightmare.

Ziva considers getting up, shaking Tony awake, doing damage control on both of them as well as this situation. But her body doesn't seem to obey her brain's feeble demand and she just lies there. Lies there with an unconscious Tony still draped over her, the shock radiating through her like pain from a bruise, like heat from the flame, as she stares at the debris, as she tries and tries and fails to understand.

* * *

It takes several minutes before Ziva can convince her limbs to re-engage. She gently lifts Tony's arm from her torso and struggles to pull herself up to a sitting position. The simple movement is too much for her aching head; she feels extraordinarily dizzy. Once her bearings are back, she turns her attention to her partner.

She gives him a once-over, and he seems to have hit his head even harder than she did on the way down. That's her primary concern – that he has a potentially serious concussion. Otherwise, he probably got bruised on his sides, and she'll have to ask him how his arm is, because he probably hit that harder on the way down as well. Besides his head, though, he doesn't look as though he's in bad shape.

She crawls army-style towards the panel of elevator buttons, wincing as she drags her ankle across the floor. She's not sure who's listening, but she presses the emergency button anyway, hoping that someone might be paying attention. It dutifully lights up, but she frantically presses it several more times, because Tony might have a serious concussion, and this is a very tiny, claustrophobic space, and a goddamn bomb just went off and she's quite rattled by it.

Intellectually, she realizes she shouldn't be this rattled – bombs burst all the time, she's seen them and dealt with the fall-out and even planted many herself in the early years – but this is NCIS. Bombs don't burst at NCIS. The bad guys never, _never_ hit here. It's practically an unstated rule of the trade.

Except now, when the rule lies as broken, shattered, as this elevator.

No one is answering the emergency call – which is just as well, because that was some bomb, shaking up this elevator, and she is sure there is plenty of damage elsewhere to take care of. So now she turns her attention to Tony, who is sprawled across the elevator floor.

He doesn't look as though a bomb just detonated nearby. He looks like he's taking a nap, sleeping on the job after a particularly tiring day. He looks so peaceful, so blissfully unaware of what is happening, that for a fleeting second she is tempted to just let him sleep, let him enjoy the peace while he can.

But she knows she has to check him out to make sure he isn't concussed. So she shakes his shoulder, whispers, "Tony? Tony, wake up."

He isn't waking. She shakes him more insistently. "Tony, wake up."

She is rewarded by a grunt, a crumple between his eyebrows indicating frustration. She continues to shake him. "Tony, I really need you to wake up."

He makes an unintelligible noise and squirms uncomfortably. Ziva shakes him still more violently. "Tony, wake up _now_."

"Mmmph." His eyes fly open and immediately find hers. "Wuzzgoinon?"

"I think you might have a concussion," Ziva says, slowly, clearly, much more calmly than she feels. "I need you to sit up."

The word concussion triggers a burst of surprise and fear in his hazel eyes. Obediently, he pulls himself into a sitting position, and Ziva negotiates her bad ankle into a sitting position in front of him.

"What is your name?"

He blinks, thinks about it. "Tony Dinozzo."

"What day is it?"

"I don't know."

A cold, all-consuming pressure grips her heart and refuses to let go. "What is the date today?"

He glances up at the ceiling, but cringes at the flickering light. "I…umm…it's some time in May, right?"

"Yes. What is the year?"

"2011? No, 2012. Right?"

"Yes. What is my name?"

He stares at her hard for a few seconds. Then— "Ziva. Ziva David."

_Thank goodness he got that one right_. "Where are we right now?"

"Elevator."

"Where is this elevator?"

"We…work here, right?"

"Yes. Where do we work?"

"NCIS."

"Good. What city is this?"

"Washington D.C."

"Yes. Good. Do you remember what happened?"

This one takes him the longest to answer; his brows crinkle with concentration. "Something… something bad was going to happen. We were trying to go somewhere."

"What else do you remember?"

"It was…was it a bomb?" He shakes his head. "Wait, no, that can't be right. Why would someone bomb NCIS?"

"Do you remember the case we were working on?"

"Something about boats, and wiring." Suddenly, his face lights up with inspiration. "Wait, it's Dearing. Harper Dearing."

The name fills her with something black and vicious; she wants to punch a hole in the elevator wall. "Yes. Dearing."

He's struggling; the pieces are coming into place, she can see it in his expression. Then his eyes go dead.

"Dearing wanted to bomb NCIS as revenge for his son."

She swallows thickly. "Yes."

"And the bomb went off as we evacuated the building."

"Yes."

"And we're now trapped in this elevator." He gestures around at the rubble, the flickering light above their heads.

"Yes."

He puts his hand to the back of his head, winces at the soreness. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. My ankle might be sprained, but otherwise, I am in good shape. I'm worried about your head. You must have hit it hard when we fell."

"It hurts," he admits. "Reminds me of the time when Cole shot me."

"At least you remember what happened this time."

"Yeah, I guess."

"How are you feeling?"

"Lightheaded. Dizzy. Nauseous. That light is way too bright. But otherwise, fine."

"I think you have a concussion."

"Maybe." His eyes wander towards the glowing emergency button, the tiny red beacon in their airless elevator space. "Do you think anyone knows we're in here?"

"I don't know," she says. "And even if they do, there are probably many victims from the blast; they will be the first priority."

He looks her in the eye. "So what are we going to do?"

Ziva sighs. "I don't know."

* * *

A/N: This is just a little introductory chapter, so yeah, not much has happened, but any and all feedback is still deeply appreciated. I don't know how long this story will end up being, but I have some interesting-ish stuff planned and I want to take it at least ten chapters or so.

Hope you guys are willing to give me a chance here. Until the next chapter, then…


	2. 4:45 PM

A/N: You guys are so incredibly sweet. I am blown away by your enthusiasm and support. Thank you so much for your encouragement! I sincerely hope I don't disappoint you.

Now, for the timing of this. From reading the finale recaps again, the team gave Palmer his gifts in the morning, Ryan had her freak-out around midday, and the team came back to brainstorm in the afternoon before realizing about the bomb. (Had to be afternoon, it was still sunny outside.) Then they wigged out and started evacuating.

By my guess, the bomb went off around…let's say, between 3 and 4 PM. With all the madness around the building, I don't think Tony and Ziva would be found before, like, 8 or 9 at the very least. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the assumption I'm working under.

Hope you guys like this chapter, then. Cheers!

* * *

**4:45 PM**

* * *

The elevator silence is solemn, oppressive. The two of them have no idea what to say or how to say it. The reality of the situation lies poised over their heads like a precarious anvil, ready to fall and crush them over the slightest out-of-place breath.

Dearing. The bomb. Scenes of untold, unimaginable chaos play like a horror movie in Tony's head – a little fuzzy, shimmering through a haze of pain, but sharp enough to send an involuntary shiver down his spine. A wave of nausea washes over his midsection like a tidal wave that threatens to pull him under.

He glances over at Ziva, who looks quite as bad as he feels. Not overtly, of course, never overtly, but he's known her for too many years not to have memorized her tells: her stillness, her crossed ankles, her tight mouth, the crinkle between her eyebrows, the haunted dullness in her usually lively dark eyes. She appears perfectly calm, but Tony knows, _knows_, that she's in hell, she's panicked, she's hurting. The small pink line of her lips are holding back a tumult. He can only imagine the thoughts currently racing around her head like race-cars on a track.

A few more agonizing minutes tick by. Neither of them move. Tony's head still aches; it's as though a team of wicked leprechauns is dancing around his brain bashing it repeatedly with mallets. The nausea flares again; his eyes flicker shut a couple of times. Suddenly, he is exhausted. Sitting here, so still, with this building headache, when a damn bomb went off so recently, is almost too much to bear.

"I think I'll take a nap," he tells Ziva at last, breaking the silence.

"You have a concussion, and I don't know how serious it is," says Ziva. "You shouldn't sleep. Not until you have been checked over."

"A short one," he proposes. "Fifteen minutes. You can time it."

She gives him a once-over. He looks completely worn out, his eyes downcast, his shoulders curled in, his mouth slack and downturned, the flickering half-light bringing out the shadows of his features. She finds herself softening; concussions hurt like hell, and drowsiness is one of the symptoms anyway, and today _has_ been very stressful...

He sees the surrender in her eyes before the words come out of her mouth.

"Fine. I will wake you in fifteen minutes."

He leans back against the wall gratefully, the metal cold against his scalp. Neither the wall nor the railing is at all pleasant, but he settles in as comfortably as he can – and before either of them knows it, his fatigue easily takes the reigns from his consciousness, and steers his body into deep slumber.

* * *

Tony is fast asleep, his features relaxed and his mouth hanging open, but Ziva is intolerably awake with nothing, literally nothing, to do.

This kind of thing never happens to her, this all-encompassing freeze upon her life. Gibbs keeps them thoroughly occupied by work at all hours of the day and she likes it, she thrives on the pressure, the relentless stress. She doesn't like being idle, especially not in crisis moments like this, and it feels wrong, hideously so, to sit quietly, imprisoned in the elevator. Her ankle is compromised, but her restlessness has been sparked and it refuses to be extinguished. She glances once, briefly, at her partner, so peaceful there in sleep.

If for absolutely nothing and no one else, she must be useful for Tony's sake. It's her fault that he's stuck in here at all. Because he had wanted to split up, but she had said no, they were in this together – no, she wasn't going anywhere without him.

In the moment, she assumed that she grabbed his arm and dragged him along because the team should always have another agent nearby in case of an emergency. But now, she has a sneaking suspicion that she only stuck close because she was afraid to be without him, in the middle of the bomb threat.

He could have been safely outside with the evacuees right now, able to help process the blast site. Instead, he's trapped in here with her, concussed and napping.

Blood pounding hot in her ears, Ziva gets to her knees and shuffles towards the center of the debris pile, Her ankle protests violently at this treatment, but she ignores it in favor of sorting out the rubble – cleaning it up a little bit, making their elevator more organized, more hospitable.

In the grand scope of things, it's not much at all. But in this elevator, in the tiny scope of things, it's something – and she will take what she can get.

* * *

Tony stirs on his own fifteen minutes later, to the sound of shifting rock and Ziva's quiet grunts of exertion and occasionally pain. He blinks a few times, groggy and confused, watching her progress.

She feels his eyes on her, sees he's awake, and says, "Oh good, you're up. I was just about to wake you."

"What are you doing?" he asks with interest.

"Moving some of this. Cleaning up."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"What hurts?"

She opens her mouth to insist she's fine, but the look on his face – shrewd, knowing, no-nonsense – dissolves the lie on her tongue. "My ankle," she admits.

"Stop doing that. Sit. Relax."

"I cannot relax."

"You can. You just don't want to."

"You're right, I don't."

"Why?"

"A bomb just went off, Tony," Ziva snaps, perhaps a bit harshly. "I cannot do nothing."

"Looks like you don't have a choice." He smirks, but it's empty of his usual humor. "Come on. Sit." He pats the ground beside him.

She hesitates, but even she can see he has a point. This is doing nothing but deplete her energy. Still, she acquiesces with some grudging bitterness; she doesn't enjoy having her helplessness confirmed. She settles in beside him, fighting to keep ignoring the sharp bites of agony from her ankle.

"How are you feeling?" she asks.

"Better, actually. A little more…with it. By the way – it's Tuesday, May 15, 2012."

Despite everything, she smiles. "Yes, very good. How about the lights? Still too bright?"

"A little. I still have a headache and I'm still a little nauseous."

"Be sure to mention all of that to the medics, when they come for us."

"Yeah. When they come."

Tony and Ziva go quiet then, picturing the medics, what they must be doing. The rubble they must be stumbling through. The bodies they must be carrying out, lingering in that ambiguous shadow between life and death. Neither of them wants to articulate the worst-case-scenario images terrorizing their imaginations – but not talking about it is just a little bit worse.

So Tony, in a tone of fiercely determined calm, asks, "What do you think they're doing right now?"

"Who?"

Almost at once, she mentally head-slaps herself. She's being stupid. Who _would _he mean?

He takes it in stride though. "The team. Gibbs. McGee. Abby."

Even hearing their names is an arrow straight to the left ventricle. "Hopefully they are outside. Safe."

"I think McGee is fine. He was heading out to the squad room when I last saw him, so he probably got out."

"What about Gibbs? Abby?"

Tony pulls his phone out of his pocket, checks the reception. "No bars in here, or I'd try to call. I think Gibbs was going to disarm the bomb."

"Obviously that didn't work."

His eyes suddenly meet hers and it's as though someone has poured a bucket of freezing water and diamond-sharp knives down her insides. For a moment, neither of them can breathe.

"Do you think…?" Ziva can't even finish the sentence.

For the first time, Tony's expression betrays some of the blind panic that has been churning in Ziva for the past hour. He looks especially ghostly in this dimmed elevator light, the soft blue hues dramatically emphasizing his cheek bones, the hollow of his eyes, making him look gaunt and tortured.

"I don't know," he whispers – chokes.

The tiny elevator is excruciatingly silent again. The air is like soup. A gigantic pressure is building and building behind Ziva's eyes; Tony is absently shredding his nails, for lack of anything else to destroy. Words fail them entirely.

It must be several long minutes before Ziva finally speaks. "I am sure he is fine," she says slowly, deliberately, almost pleadingly. "If…if anything had happened to Gibbs, we would know."

He doesn't even have the stamina to argue with her. Instead, he nods and says, "Yeah. Abby too. I'm sure she got out fine."

"She did," Ziva agrees. "They are probably processing the scene." _As we should be too._

"Yeah." He pauses. "And the Autopsy Gremlin must be married by now." He mimes tossing confetti, his smile like a toothpaste ad, bright but false. "Congratulations to him and his Greta."

"Her name is Breena."

Tony sighs, shakes his head. His exasperation at Ziva's inability to understand a single one of his movie references is so familiar, lightening the mood so endearingly, that she's almost glad she doesn't get it.

"Greta is the first female gremlin in Gremlins 2, Ziva. Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, 1990?"

"Oh. Well, then, yes. It's 5:08, so there must officially be a Mrs. Palmer now."

Tony sighs again, but this time rather wistfully. "Can you believe it? Palmer's married and we had to miss it."

"I know," says Ziva. "Florida must be beautiful."

"Warm. Sunny." Tony smiles longingly. "They're probably dancing to sappy love songs that only sound good at weddings."

"Ducky will be with him," adds Ziva. "They have probably cut the cake already. Taken hundreds of pictures."

"They're probably buzzed on champagne." He smacks his lips. "I could use champagne, you know."

"It really is a shame," she says. "We should have been there."

"Yeah. He's the first one of us to get married. Imagine that."

"What about Gibbs?"

"Gibbs has practically made a second career of getting married; he doesn't count," Tony scoffs. "This is Palmer's first. And none of our team has married yet."

"Yes, that's true," muses Ziva.

"Well, I mean, except for you. You almost got married."

He regrets the careless words almost the instant they leave his lips. _Too far_. And sure enough, something in Ziva's face goes dead at this reminder. But her tone is convincingly light and nonchalant as she says, "You're right." A pause. "If you had to predict it, who do you think would have married first?"

"Honestly? Probably – and I can't believe I'm saying this – but I would have thought it would be McGee."

"I agree," she says. "He is the most likely out of all of us to commit."

"But it was Palmer." Tony shudders. "It's still a weird thought to me."

"I'm glad it was him. He and Breena will be happy together."

"Yeah. I hope so. Are they honeymooning right away, do you know?"

"No, I don't."

"Think they'll come back when they hear about…this?"

"I don't know. I hope not. They should enjoy their honeymoon. It is a special time."

"Think they already know?"

Ziva considers. "Most likely. Ducky will know, since he is the medical examiner, and he will tell Palmer. He will want him to remain…informed."

Tony has nothing more to say, so the conversation dies there, plunges back into that thick, unbearable, worried silence. The two of them sit there, side by side,

Goodness knows what kind of hysteria is unfolding around the building, as the lucky ones attempt to save the injured and locate the dead and the missing. But in this elevator is a complete vacuum of sound, where two agents sit, side by side, close enough that their legs are touching – yet their minds are a lightyears apart, their faces tight and miserable, as they fail to muster the energy, the boldness, to utter a single word.

* * *

A/N: And that...was that.

So, obviously, they weren't going to get to the deep personal stuff right away. The team comes first; this is an impossible situation and no one is thinking about anything else right now. But next chapter, as the boredom sets in and distraction becomes necessary, we start transitioning into more of the personal conversation, so get ready for that.

My muse is kind of in love with this elevator fic idea. She's bright and motivated and surprisingly focused right now. I am going to ride this wave of positivity for as long as I have it.

But my muse also loves reviews, so any feedback you guys have is always deeply appreciated. I hope you liked this. Until the next chapter, then!


	3. 5:30 PM

A/N: You guys officially win the award for "collectively breaking Zay's personal record for number of story alerts after two chapters." You are every kind of wonderful and I love you for wanting to know what crazy thing I'll do next. It means the world to me.

I'm sorry for the lag time on this. I'm on vacation, which means writing-and-Internet time can be limited. But here I am, and I hope to post again in the next week or so.

Enjoy the chapter!

* * *

**5:30 PM**

* * *

The elevator is so intensely silent that when the intercom comes on – a soft clicking noise that would otherwise be lost to the symphony of everyday life – it makes both of them jump.

There is static for a few seconds, crackling and distant. Tony and Ziva both stare at the little speaker, hardly daring to breathe for fear of missing a single sound. Their patience is presently rewarded when a man's voice – rough, cracking, faint, but audible – calls out to them.

"Hello? Hello? Can anybody hear me?"

"Yes," Tony and Ziva shout together.

"Hello? Hello?"

Ziva leans forward, wincing at the pressure on her ankle, and stabs at the intercom button. "Yes. We can hear you."

"Oh, okay, so you're in the elevator. Hey," the man's voice shouts to someone on his end, "we have someone in elevator four! M'am, what is your name? Is there anyone in the elevator with you?"

"Special Agent Ziva David," she says, "and I am with Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo."

"David and Dinozzo," the guy informs someone else – someone close by, based upon his calmer, quieter tone. "Yeah…yeah…so you can check them off the 'missing' list."

"Have you heard anything from Agent Gibbs?" Ziva asks – no, demands – before she can stop herself. She cannot waste this opportunity to speak to a flesh-and-blood human being who is out in the thick of the action, who would know better than she the answers to her questions. "What about Agent McGee? Or the forensic scientist, Abby Sciuto?"

"Agent David, I don't know anything at this point. I'm sorry," says the agent. "Listen, I don't have much time here. What is your status now? What is Agent Dinozzo's status?"

"Agent Dinozzo has a concussion, seriousness questionable. He is fully functional."

"And yourself?"

"My ankle may be broken."

"Okay. Hang on one second, all right?"

The intercom transits nothing but static. Ziva turns wildly to Tony, who appears simply stunned. They aren't sure what exactly to make of this development; they just stare at each other, mouths hanging slightly open, waiting for the agent to return to the line.

After perhaps thirty to forty seconds, he is back.

"Agent David, Agent Dinozzo, we want to get you out of that elevator as soon as possible, but we just don't have the available man power right now. Your conditions sound stable. You can wait, can't you?"

"How long?" asks Tony.

"A few hours. We're sorry, but it's hard to say. That bomb did plenty of damage. We have quite a few agents down."

"Of course," says Ziva breathlessly.

"We'll be in contact as soon as possible, Agent David," says the agent. "Stay close to your intercom. And good luck."

The line goes dead.

* * *

There doesn't seem to be much more to say after the brief communication with an agent whose name neither of them even thought to ask. Ziva's ankle throbs horribly, the pain radiating relentlessly through her leg, the rest of her numb, empty. Her face is frozen in a tight, impassive mask. She doesn't move at all for several minutes after the agent cut contact.

_A few hours_. While NCIS deals with the aftermath of a full-scale crisis, she and her partner are stuck in a half-dark elevator, low on air supply and starved for news. It's nightmarish, not being able to o a thing. It's claustrophobic, scanning the walls for the thousandth time because there is nothing else to look at, nowhere else to go. She still can't wrap her head around any of this.

And Tony can only watch Ziva, equally shocked and worried and frustrated and helpless, unable to console her or himself. His head is heavy, his consciousness fuzzy, his heart cloudy and cold, but he clears his throat and says, "So…you want to play twenty questions?"

She turns her head slowly to face him, disbelief spreading across her face like a growing ink stain. "What are you talking about, Tony?"

"Exactly what I said. Twenty questions. You want to play?"

"Tony. This is hardly the time."

"Why? Because we're so busy checking down lists of missing agents, searching the rubble, helping people get medical assistance?" His voice breaks at the end; his tone is sharp, maybe a little too sharp, and his eyes are wild, unguarded.

Her cheeks become flushed with red; she clears her throat. "You know what I mean."

"I do. But we don't have any choice and we need some way to pass the time," he says more gently. "If you have any other suggestions, please, by all means, let me know. But until then, how about a game? Like twenty questions?"

She sighs resignedly. "All right."

"Do you know how to play?"

"I think so. You pick an object, give me a category and I ask you twenty different yes-or-no questions in order to guess what it is."

"Very good. Where did you learn to play, out of curiosity?"

"McGee taught me on an interview run."

"Of course."

"You can hardly make fun of him. You want to play it now."

"The circumstances are different."

"Whatever."

"Do you want to go first?"

"No. You can go first."

"Fine. I'm thinking of…a food."

She considers. "Is it…a solid?"

"No."

"Is it…light-colored?"

"Sometimes."

"Is it…something I can find easily in a grocery store? As in, do I know what it is?"

"Yes. Definitely."

"Is it…expensive?"

"Not usually."

"Do I like it?"

"Yes."

"Do I drink it in the morning?"

"Yes."

"Is it…coffee?"

"Yeah. Very good, Ziva," says Tony. "Coffee. I could use some caffeine right now. My head is killing me."

She goes silent then, and instantly he knows he has said something wrong.

"What?" he asks.

She carefully weighs the word on her tongue. "Gibbs."

His heart sinks. "Yeah. The boss man loves his coffee."

Something terse and complicated ripples across her features. "Tony, I just hope he is all right."

"He will be fine," says Tony, though he doesn't sound fully convinced either. "He probably had some probie go for a coffee run, so he could stay up all night, processing everything."

"He drinks it like water, honestly," remarks Ziva with a flicker of a smirk. "He will need multiple runs."

"He's fine," Tony repeats in a tone of finality. "Now it's your turn."

"Okay." Ziva's mouth is slightly more relaxed, though her eyes remain worried. "Hmmm…all right. I've got one."

"What's the category?"

"Place."

"Okay. Ummm…is it somewhere I've been?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Is it in America?"

"No."

"Is it in Europe?"

"Yes."

"Is it a city?"

"Yes."

"Is it a really big metropolis?"

"Yes."

"Is it…in mainland Europe?"

"No."

"Is it London?"

"Yes. Very good."

London. Interesting choice."

"Not interesting enough, it seems. You got it in under ten questions."

"Don't beat yourself up over that." He flashes her one of his wide, dazzling smiles. "I'm a champ at twenty questions."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I used to play it a lot in college. Road trips, drunken evenings doing nothing with the guys. I got really good."

"Isn't the American college experience supposed to be more…exciting? More partying, less word games like twenty questions?"

"Well, I did plenty of partying too," he says with a smirk. "But even college students get bored, Ziva."

"Interesting." She smiles – and to both of their astonishment, she yawns briefly, would-be-discreetly.

"Ziva, are you tired?" he asks her, surprised and concerned.

"No, no, I'm not tired," she says quickly. "How are you feeling? How is your head?"

"I'm fine," he says, "but you should probably take a quick nap. Fifteen minutes. I'll wake you."

She looks like she's about to protest, so he points out, "It'll make it easier to stay awake later, when we might actually have things to do. You need the rest."

She wants to tell him that he's the one who should be resting, with the concussion and everything, and she's used to running on no sleep – but something about the set of his jaw, his no-nonsense expression, silences her. Plus, he does kind of have a point…she _would_ need the rest if she was called upon later to help find Dearing…

"Okay. Fine. Thank you." She tries to find a comfortable spot against the wall. "And make sure you wake me in fifteen minutes. You need to rest too."

"I promise. Now sleep."

A grateful smile flickers across her lips. And even though this position is desperately awkward, even though her ankle throbs and her conscience remains revolted by this desire for a nap, she lets her eyes shut; and without warning, sleep takes her prisoner, and not a single cell in her body rebels.

* * *

It feels like only a few minutes later that Ziva awakens to the sensation of falling.

With a jolt, she opens her eyes, takes a brief inventory of her surroundings. The flickering elevator light, the cold metal walls, the hardness of the floor beneath her the railing cutting into her back. There is a low ticking sound she can't quite place coming from something nearby. And her cheek is resting on a cool, slightly rough fabric.

She lifts her head up slightly. Her cheek was on Tony's shoulder. She lifts her head up a little higher. The ticking sound is from Tony's cell phone; he's playing a game.

"You're up," he says, registering the change in pressure and in her breathing without looking up from his game.

"I am." She blinks, sits up. "I can't believe I actually slept."

"I can't believe you didn't sleep longer. Boss keeps us all good and sleep-deprived, particularly now with this whole Dearing business."

"That's the thing, I think I have forgotten how to sleep at all."

"Maybe there's a benefit to being in this elevator. We can catch up on sleep."

"You're not allowed to sleep," she says. "I don't want to take a chance with your concussion."

"I feel fine."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"I guess."

"What's the time?"

He pauses his game. "It's 6:30."

"Really?" She snatches his phone from him to see for herself. "How is it already 6:30? When did I sleep?"

"You went to sleep around 5:45," he says calmly, taking his phone back and resuming his game.

"So why didn't you wake me? We agreed on fifteen minutes."

He shrugs. "You looked like you were in a deep sleep. I didn't want to disturb you."

Through her disbelief, she finds that she is touched.

"Tony, next time we go to sleep, we have to promise to be vigilant about the time."

"Okay." He still isn't looking up from his game.

"What are you playing anyway?" she asks in spite of herself, peering over his shoulder.

"Pacman."

"Is it really wise to deplete your cell phone battery with Pacman? You don't know how long we'll be stuck here."

"It was just for a little while." He lets his character die and pockets the phone, smiling brightly at her. "Now you're awake and we can spend some more quality time together."

Ziva sighs. "Are there any other games you played in college?"

Tony considers. "Well, I spent quite a bit of time perfecting my beer pong technique, but obviously that wouldn't work in this case."

"Obviously."

"And…well, like I said, twenty questions was the other big one. Otherwise, we had nothing to offer besides our life stories. We did truth or dare, two truths and a lie, plain old Truth—"

"Plain old Truth?"

"Yeah."

"The others I can understand – there are rules and winning and losing – but Truth? What was the point of that?"

Tony shrugs. "Sometimes…well, there's nothing else to do and you can't think of anything to talk about. Sometimes you don't know the people you're with to save your own life. Sometimes…sometimes you're not in the mood for games. Sometimes you just want the truth straight-up."

They lock eyes then, and he tries to keep his expression light, neutral, but there's something murky, brooding, in his eyes that he can't hide. This, more than anything, intrigues her.

"How do you hold people accountable if it's just about truth?" asks Ziva.

"You can't. So it's like a game of trust. But you'd be surprised. Honesty is contagious. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff we got people to admit in college."

"I'm sure I could."

He grins. "Maybe."

"So…are there _any_ rules for Truth?"

"Well, true to the name, you have to answer each question truthfully, no matter how uncomfortable. And you get one pass. But that's it, so you have to use it wisely."

"Can you repeat questions? For example, if you ask me a question, can I ask you the same one back?"

"I guess, but the game would get one-sided and boring if you did it too much."

"Okay. Then do you want to go first or should I?"

Tony arches an eyebrow. "You want to play?"

"We have the time to kill," she says.

"All right, then." He sits up a bit straighter, then shifts to the other side of the elevator, so that he can get a better look at her.

"Game on, Ziva David. Because I'm a nice guy, I'll let you go first."

* * *

A/N: This was the last real transition chapter. Now, we get into the meat of things, into the Truth game, where the questions start a bit lighter and then get into the heavy stuff. The chapter after the next one is the real doozy of the story – the reason I began this fic at all, really.

I'm excited and I hope you are too! Please remember to review before you exit out of the browser, and I'll see you lot next chapter.


	4. 6:35 PM

A/N: Hi, guys. No, I didn't forget about you. It's just that I was on vacation a few weeks ago, exploring London and cuddling the hell out of my adorable cousins, and then I got sick, and when I finally stopped hacking out enough mucus to drown a small village, my muse was all like, "LOL who cares what you want, Zay, I don't feel like working on this, I want to write a one-shot instead!" And then when the oneshot was done…well, life happened, and I just wasn't inspired anymore. So this poor story was kind of left to the wayside a little bit.

But. But! I'm back. Finally. And I do want to finish this. Just bear with me here. I certainly do hope that I can stay focused here and update quickly from now on.

So…I hope you guys like this. Cheers!

* * *

**6:35 PM**

* * *

"Hmmmm…" Ziva strokes an imaginary beard and considers Tony, a mixture of humor and seriousness glimmering in her dark eyes. "Let's see…"

"This isn't an interrogation, Ziva," he says. "You don't have to think so hard."

"Well, I get the first question, and I want to make it count," she says. "All right then. Fine. Do you have a hidden talent?"

"Seriously? That's the question you want to make count?"

"It is a legitimate question!"

"If you insist." He sighs, mulling it over. "Well…I can fold my tongue into a clover."

"Show me."

He obliges. She wrinkles her nose.

"That is a talent?"

"Can _you_ do it?"

She curls her tongue into a perfect clover. He rolls his eyes and says, "Okay, fine. You can do it. But I…I also have an encyclopedic movie memory."

"That is hardly a _secret_ talent, Tony."

"And in college, I used to sing in a band."

She raises her eyebrows. "Really? That I did not expect."

"It wasn't a huge deal or anything. I owed a buddy of mine some money, which I didn't have at the time, so he told me that I could pay him back by singing in his band." He snickers, remembering. "They were trying to hit it big. Never did, of course. But it was kinda fun. Plus, I got a bunch of really hot groupies."

"Do you still have the CDs?" Ziva asks, intrigued.

"No, I made sure to burn as many as I could," says Tony, laughing. "You know, after they finally realized they were crap and gave up on the band."

She chuckles. "Shame. I would have paid good money to hear those."

"I'm sure you would have. Now – it's my turn."

"Should I be worried?"

"Why would you be worried?"

"You aren't going to ask me anything about my sex life, are you?"

He grins, a little pink. "Tempting as the offer is, no, I will not. I want to leave this elevator eventually with all my limbs and internal organs intact."

She just smiles, says nothing. Tony ponders what exactly he should ask her. It hasn't escaped his notice that this is a prime opportunity to grill his partner on things he has always wanted to know about her, but he doesn't want to blow it. He can't start too heavy. She's like the frog in hot water – if he sets her to boiling right away, she'll hop out and flee, but if he gradually increases the heat, she'll stay put and maybe, just maybe, he'll get something good.

"Okay," he says at last. "Worst thing you ever ate?"

"Raw cocoa beans," she says immediately, with a shudder.

He pulls a face. "Eww. Why?"

"I was on a stake-out in Venezuela and the closest thing to us was a cocoa harvesting factory," says Ziva, shuddering at the memory. "My partner at the time wasn't very good at figuring out which plants were edible in the forest and neither was I, so all we had to eat for three days were the beans we could steal. I still struggle with dark chocolate. I would take cockroaches over raw cocoa beans."

"Seriously?" He pulls a face.

"Cockroaches taste like mud, but they at least offer protein. Cocoa beans are…acrid, bitter. They made me sick."

"I'd rather just starve," he says, shuddering.

She just shrugs. "I survived. So. My turn. First girl you ever kissed?"

He chuckles. "Straight for the love life, huh?"

"I didn't ask about sex. I asked about your first kiss."

"Why?"

She clicks her tongue. "Tut, tut, it's not your turn yet. Answer the question."

"Fine. Her name was Jessica. I don't even remember her last name. We were in middle school. We kissed behind the dumpster during gym class."

"How romantic."

"It was middle school. There weren't a lot of romantic places we could go."

"Why did you kiss her then? You could have waited."

Tony considers answering this, but ends up saying, "Tut, tut, it's not your turn anymore."

"What? I just wanted a little context," she says.

"You only asked me who it was."

She clicks her tongue with irritation. "Fine. Your question."

He clicks his tongue, looks up at the ceiling of their elevator, the dimly flickering lights. "Okay. Favorite place you've ever been to?"

"That is a difficult one." Ziva chews on her lower lip. "Most likely Rio de Janeiro. It was a beautiful city. I would like to go back there again one day, as a tourist. See more of it."

She is silent for a moment then, her expression mostly neutral, but there is a wistfulness in her eyes and an edgy tension in the set of her mouth that makes him wonder what exactly happened in Rio de Janeiro the first time. When she went, what she saw. What she did.

It's only a moment, though, before her attention is back on him and she asks, "Have you ever had a pet?"

He smirks. "Well…I've always wanted a bird or a lizard or something, but I never got around to getting one. Never really good with animals. When I was younger, my dad had a dog for a little while – drove me nuts – his name was Silas, for reasons completely unbeknownst to me. He was…a handful, to put it mildly, like _Marley and Me, _except without the bonding."

"What happened to him?"

"Died a couple of months after we got him. Dad left a cake on the counter within Silas's reach and he had a pretty gruesome death by chocolate. I must have been about…six years old."

"I'm sorry. Losing a pet is difficult at a young age."

He shrugs. "It happened a long time ago."

She still looks sympathetic, so he clears his throat and remarks, "You know, we've known each other all these years, and I still don't know your favorite color?"

"That's true." Her smile is demure, amused. "It's green. What is your happiest memory?"

"Happiest…ever?"

"Yes."

He really has to think about that one. He flips through memories of his cop years, his college years, the distant fuzziness of his grade school years, wondering which of his many thousands of days would count as the happiest. She waits patiently, hugging her knees, absently rubbing her injured ankle.

"Well," he says at last, "I guess it would be the time I went to Universal Studios in Florida with my parents. I must have been, like, seven. It was the last vacation I took with my mom."

He fights to keep his tone neutral, but there is a certain brittleness in his voice as the memories rush back, sharp as photographs – the heat of the afternoon, the saltiness of the popcorn he snacked on, his mother's laughter, his father's almost constant smile. And she hears it, he knows she does, because that sympathetic softness returns to her eyes, so intense that he almost can't bear it.

"I ate so much cotton candy that I threw up at the end of the day," says Tony a little too quickly, mostly to bridge the thick silence but kind of for himself. "My mom bought one of those stupid touristy Florida hats. My dad refrained from drinking until after my mom and I went back to the hotel, which was nice." He clears his throat. "So. Umm. What was your happiest memory?"

"Mine?" She had been so caught up in him, his story, the way his guard melted away and left him tender, that she is taken aback by his question.

"Yeah. My turn for the question."

"Okay."

She reluctantly draws her thought process away from Tony and towards her own memories, thorny and complicated as most of them are. She sighs, lays her head back against the wall of the elevator, remembering.

"I suppose it would have to be…one afternoon, while I was on my first assignment, my partner and I were driving on the highway. We were in Rome. It was hot out and I kicked the speed up to eighty, ninety, a hundred kilometers an hour. In a weird way, I felt…grown up. Free. Adventurous." She chews on her lip, considering. "My other happiest would have to be when I became a fully fledged NCIS agent last year. Finally, officially."

She clears her throat, obviously uncomfortable with the way he's looking at her – probingly, intensely. And he can tell. For all his effort to keep the questions light to start with, pass the time productively, and for all her effort to answer the questions honestly, she's unwilling and awkward. It's been a long time since they've been stuck alone together this way, just talking. The past few months have been difficult, with his mole hunt and EJ and the missions abroad, and they've only really had snatches of time to themselves. Now, sitting here, with nowhere else to go, no case to crack, no distractions at all, they almost don't know what to do with each other. They're a little rusty together with each other's stories, their secrets. In a way, it makes him kind of sad. Once, they never ran out of things to say.

"You know what this whole thing reminds me of?" he says, a minute or so later. "When we got trapped in the box a few years ago. With the DVDs?"

"I do remember," says Ziva with a smirk.

"You shot that bullet and nearly killed us."

"You almost killed us with smoke inhalation when you set a fire inside."

"Touche." He grins. "We were so cold."

"And so bored. Desperately hoping Gibbs would find us."

"Think he'll find us tonight?"

Her smile melts a little. "I think he will. The medic did talk to us on the intercom. He, at least, knows we are in here."

"At least we won't have crazy arms dealers shooting at us when we get out."

The humor is dry, a bit silly, but she takes it in stride. "True."

"If you had to get stuck in an elevator – or a storage box, for that matter – with anyone from NCIS, who would you want it to be?" he asks her.

"Hmmm." She chews on her lip again. "Gibbs would be too quiet. Abby would talk too much. And I've been stuck in an elevator with McGee for a night before, and I wouldn't want to repeat the experience."

"Oh yeah, I forgot! When the power went out!" Tony laughs. "How was that? I never asked."

Ziva rolls her eyes. "McGee is a…worrier. He panics. He paces. It makes _me _nervous."

"Poor kid," he sniffs. "That must have been a long night."

"It was. So…I would most likely pick Ducky. He has the most fascinating stories. He would, at least, entertain."

"What about me?" asks Tony, affronted.

"You're not so bad," she says coyly, her eyes twinkling. "I mean, this is our second time stuck somewhere together and you have been quite good so far. Surprisingly."

"How is it surprising?"

"You are juvenile and frustrating in the bull-pen, yet you are…dare I say it, mature, and put-together, when the time demands it."

"I'm not senior field agent for nothing," he reminds her.

"These are the moments when I remember why."

She says it lightly, but then he smiles – and it's not his usual bright, toothpaste-ad beam, but a small, shy, proud little thing, sweet and understated. She basks in it for a few seconds, pleased that she is the one who inspired it in him, but then she changes tack and asks him, "So what is the most intimate thing someone has ever told you during a game of Truth? In college, when you played?"

"The most intimate? What do you mean?"

"I mean, what is the most personal thing someone has ever admitted to during a game of Truth?"

"Oh, all sorts of things," he says. "I mean, some people have fessed up to some serious fetishes, and some minor crimes, but they've also said other things. Like…like one time, this girl admitted she'd been raped." He shakes his head as he remembers the awful silence that followed her confession. "And this one guy, we asked him the most serious thing he'd ever done, and he said he had tried to kill himself once, and went to the hospital and everything." He sighs heavily, runs a hand through his hair. "And you'd never know that, just looking at them, and they never talked about it otherwise, before or after the conversation – but because everyone was talking, and sharing things, they said it."

"Amazing how that happens, isn't it?" she says softly. "Leave a small group of people in a room together for long enough, and they'll tell each other everything."

"Sometimes. Not all the time." He leans his head back against the elevator wall. "I mean, you need the right chemistry. The right mood. The right question."

He's caught her eye now, and something is melting, giving way in her rich, dark irises. She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and asks softly, "What is something you've never told anyone?"

His brow furrows; his heartbeat quickens. He doesn't want to screw this up, doesn't want to tell her the wrong thing. He can feel her searching him for something, though what is anyone's guess. He hums something silly under his breath, clicks his tongue, taps his fingers on his thigh, tries to look busy as he roots through his memories.

"Well…" He hesitates, his eyes a bit tender despite his neutral expression. "When I was sixteen, I was in a gun-fight."

She raises her eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yeah. It never got written up on my record or anything. But it was a buddy of mine in high school – after school, he got in some trouble with some of the, well, more troublesome members of our population, and they pulled a gun on him. Shocked us both. We tackled the guy together, but the gun went off and missed us by inches. Got the guy to leave us alone after that, by threatening to tell the administration about the gun – because they would have investigated and found it, the guy wasn't too bright – but we never told."

"Why not?"

"Too scared." Tony shrugs, not meeting her eye. "First time I'd ever been in such close contact with a gun. When I got home, I realized I'd peed my pants a little." Despite himself, he smirks a little. "I never knew, then. That I'd spend the rest of my career handling a gun." He clears his throat. "So what about you? What's something you've never told anyone?"

She goes quiet, mulling it over. The moment he articulates the question, the answer pops into her head and refuses to leave. She'd kept this one from him for years. And she'd never told him before, because the moment never seemed right, maybe now is the best time to finally tell him, eliminate this final secret from their relationship. She just isn't sure if it's something she knows how to tell him – something he's quite ready to hear, even now.

He's looking at her earnestly, expectantly, waiting. She swallows thickly and searches for the right words.

* * *

A/N: And there it is. The first installment of Truth, and a cliffie to tide you over while I write the next chapter. I hope the update doesn't take as long as this one did. I do hope you liked it though, and it was worth the wait. Drop a comment in the review box below and let me know, and I'll see you next chapter!


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